William Morris Hunt, Beginnings

"Marguerite" by William Holman Hunt

"William Morris Hunt was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, March 31, 1824. He was the son of Hon. Jonathan Hunt, a graduate of Dartmouth College, who married Miss Jane Leavitt of Suffield, Connecticut. She was a woman of great beauty with a natural aptitude for painting. In her early years she had shown a strong desire to draw and paint but the desire met with no encouragement. When she timidly showed her father a sketch that she had made he said, "Who did that?" "I did it," was the reply. "Take it away! and, mind you, no more of this!" he ordered.

Later in life, now a widow with five children to educate, Hunt's mother resolved that they should have the advantages which had been denied her. An Italian artist was in the town, New Haven, looking for orders or for pupils. His name was Gambadella.

Mrs. Hunt gave him a room in the upper part of her house and endeavored to find pupils for him, but not one could she obtain. Nothing daunted, she declared that there should be a class, and it should consist of her children and herself. The little class worked with zeal, and, at the end of the term, an exhibition of their work was given. It aroused much interest in the town and there was a general desire for lessons. "You are too late!" was her proud and happy response, and no one outside of the family was admitted.

Of her children, one was Richard M. Hunt, the eminent architect of New York. Another became a physician spending his life in Paris. A third gave up his profession of lawyer at the time of our Civil War, rendering good service as a colonel of a Vermont regiment. And William Morris Hunt became a famous artist."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt" by Helen Mary Knowlton